Jay-Z’s second album “haunts” him.
The ’99 Problems’ hitmaker released ‘In My Lifetime, Vol 1’ in 1997, with the record going to number three on the Billboard 200 chart in the US but he admitted he has never been a fan of the record because he knows what it “could have been” if he’d done things differently.
Jay made the admission in a rare tweet in response to fellow musician Questlove’s analysis of the album.
Questlove first quoted a tweet from a fan which read: “Hot take: “Sunshine” by Jay-Z was fine and got an unnecessarily bad rap. Actually holds up better now than it did then.(sic)”
Tagging Jay – whose real name is Shawn Carter, which inspired his Twitter handle @SC – in his posts, Questlove replied: “Our main argument is his hate for Vol 1.
He is embarrassed for trying to make a monster & not putting numbers up. But ALOT of this lp contains his best moments. Fight me
@sc
“-million one questions (we ride w it)
-“I know what girls like” got shafted. 2 pop culture classics that mighta went over the head in 97, but I was there for joy.
-imaginary created HOV (lol shit built me on the real)
-streets/friend2/etc I’m running outta space.
-this jawn knock
“When you hear Players you got two sides to choose….you wanna be the cat who who got leathers…..or you wanna be the cat asking the cat if you got leathers. I wasn’t thinking “big” then (I was living in my smallness in 97 lol) but I knew I was NEVER gonna be the latter (sic)”
In response, Jay wrote: “Agreed . More so, I know what could have been, so it haunts me … streets is watching was the first song made !(sic)”
The 52-year-old star tweeted just twice in 2021 and not at all in the two years prior, so Questlove joked he was going to treasure his rare response.
He quipped in reply: “Uh can I make this tweet an NFT?(sic)